THE WRITING ON THE WALL

The writing’s on the wall;

stones and sticks and clay and bricks

tell the stories of our history

written in blood and sweat and thousands of tears

I sit in the quiet of the memory hall,

feeling my throat close up and tears start to flow;

how could it be that a people like me

were treated like less than dirt under my feet

I read about how they painted in song

and wrote stories on stone walls, making their

voices known as only they could

dreams shared by entire generations

almost wiped out by white skinned men

who came from afar on a ship with flags

and guns and bibles and a foreign tongue

We watched you from the shore, we

greeted you and welcomed you with

smiles and meals

You smiled back, the greed showing on your gnashing teeth

On our sacred land, where we were born free

they came and beat us, chained us and took what was ours

made us pay for what we farmed and what we sowed

Our mothers and fathers watered the soil with their blood

from it grew the bones of ancestors

the bones we used to make bows and arrows and

found ourselves fighting for land that was ours to begin with

I am an African! I can hear the screams

I am of this earth, and of this sky and of this land

I am an African!

From the earth we were born

sold as slaves as a child

We are also human they say

while they tie us to a donkey, a horse

the heartbeat of the earth beating beneath our bare feet

The only sign we are still alive

You struck us, you tried to belittle us

you put a price on our humanity

but we rose up ; we marched and we fought back

And now we are here

Telling the stories you tried to make us forget

But we have not forgotten and

we will beat the drums

and sing the songs and

write the stories of our heritage